my backyard tunnel

Develop the project of your yard. Think carefully, what and where to plant, count the exact number of plants. Learn characteristics of the desired species, their soil, moisture, light, and heat needs.

DO NOT HURRY. Remember: haste makes waste. Very often, people spend a lot of money on plants, which just cannot grow on their yards or in our climate. Plants die and people get frustrated. Well, they might have not spent money on them!

START WITH GARDEN. First, plant a base for your yard – trees and shrubs, plan where your garden will be. If you are not going to sell fruit, then three apple trees (early, middle and late), two pear trees (early and late), two apricot trees, two plum trees, two cherry trees, three currant bushes, and two gooseberry bushes is enough for a family of four or five people. In order not to spend extra money, buy seedlings only at the proven sellers.

FOREST GLADE – ECONOMY OPTION. If your yard is small, you should not plant large trees – choose the low shapes. There should be one or two plants playing the role of the vertical and being the center of the composition. So, you may make a small forest glade in your yard with a rowan, maple, birch, and spruce. If you cut them regularly, you can stop their growth and give them the necessary form. You may buy the cheap seedlings in the forestry, take them from the neighbors, or simply dig a self-sowing in the forest.

YOU CAN SAVE EVEN ON THUYAS. Thuyas are expensive, even more so is the dense living fence around the perimeter of your yard. However, aesthetically, monotonous thuya solid wall around the house is too much. If you cannot imagine your yard without thuyas, plant them, say, at the entrance of your yard, on the front side of the house. To save money, buy small seedlings. It is not necessary to abandon the idea of living fence at all. It is beautiful, comfortable and improves the microclimate. When choosing plants, keep in mind that most deciduous shrubs costs less than conifers. Many of them are well propagated by cuttings and grow rapidly. You can braid your fence with unpretentious parthenocissus, pea fabaceae, or plant sunflowers, hollyhocks on perimeter. You can ask your neighbors for the seedlings of lilac, rose, and jasmine. One or a number of these bushes bloom beautifully, look wonderfully on the lawn, in a recreation area, or near the summerhouse.

FOCUS on the garden paths. When they are beautiful, the entire yard looks neat and well-groomed. If your paths are paved with broken tiles, you are better to throw them away. It is not necessary to buy new expensive tiles; you may make DIY tiles of concrete with some colored pebbles or dyes. And the paths of the usual stones may be even free. To this, even a woman alone can make them.

LAWN is not a whim. It decorates the yard, emphasizes the beauty of ornamental plants. You can sow the lawn with your hands – it’s pretty simple. It is very important to constantly take care of it.

SAY STOP TO EXOTIC SPECIES! Do not buy plants you know nothing about for your flower beds. They may be wasted money. You can save by making a flower bed of perennial plants. Among them, you may also plant annuals that give a lot of seeds. Collect and sow them – and you will get a beautiful flower garden for free.

ECONOMIC ROCKERY. Creating a rockery or a small Japanese garden in your yard, you can’t go wrong. This is stylish and quite cheap option. You will need large stones, moss, some conifers, and lots of groundcovers. Such composition can be placed on the north side of the yard, in the shade. It will look beautiful throughout a year.

DIY GARDEN DECOR. These may be pots, figurines, decorative fences, garden furniture, summerhouses, and so on. Manufacturing of DIY garden decor is easy and we publish DIY-tutorials regularly.

SAVE ON CHEMISTRY. As for fertilizers, it’s better to use compost, herbal infusions.

MAKE FRIENDS with your neighbors. It’s better not to ask them for plants, but to exchange for your own or to treat them with pies, ask them to dinners or to barbecue, and so on. Then your neighbors-gardeners-florists will willingly offer you plants, bulbs, tubers, and seedlings.